


The Key To Harmony

by lindsey_grissom



Series: Crystal Heart [17]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-24
Updated: 2010-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-10 15:37:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindsey_grissom/pseuds/lindsey_grissom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The Doctor talks all the time, but eventually he has to start listening.</i>  Part of the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/3978">Crystal Heart</a> 'Verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Key To Harmony

Lots of things have changed in the last year. Jack left, came back. She was in charge, she isn't now. She got engaged, she got married. There is Tosh and Owen. There is Ianto and Jack. But by far the weirdest change is the flood of information they have been getting about the Captain.

Jack has always been a mystery, and just because he let her in a little bit more than the others, does not mean she hasn't always had more questions. Thousands in fact. And then suddenly they were learning so much, so fast they barely have time to accept and react.

Which is how, she supposes, they came to be standing in the Hub, crowded around Tosh's computer and watching a very private, and very intense argument between Jack and his Doctor. Which is another change, because Ianto insists he is the reason Torchwood began. And Ianto knows almost as much as the Sleepers did of Torchwood.

"We shouldn't be watching this." It's a token protest. She will not move unless someone physically drags her away.

"Shut up Gwen, Tosh, turn up the volume." Tosh does and Gwen releases a guiltily relieved sigh.

No one is going to force them to stop.

Two male voices, louder now and almost echoing in the Hub can be heard, and the CCTV camera images fill every one of Tosh's screens. She has no idea why the two men chose the cell level to have this fight, but she is thankful for it. They would never have found out anything if Jack had gone straight for his office.

Jack's image spins suddenly from his constant pacing and glares angrily at the Doctor. She needs to start paying attention before she misses something.

"Don't you dare tell me where I should and should not be. It was a Torchwood matter, you're the one who shouldn't have been there!" Ah, so it's about their last case. It figures, Jack hasn't been in the best of moods since returning from Aber.

"I can go where I like, Captain. I've been doing this a lot longer than you, and if you hadn't come barging in, guns blazing…"

"You'd have been shot by the one you didn't see behind you!" She hasn't seen Jack this frustrated since Tosh tried to take a bullet for him. That had been neither the first nor last time Jack pulled out his; 'I'm immortal. I don't stay dead. If you do that again _I'll_ kill you.' speech.

The Doctor appears to be getting angrier and she wonders just how right Ianto is, and whether the Doctor is dangerous. Of course, Jack would recover.

"They would have left if you'd just let me help them. I could've fixed their ship, sent them on their way, no harm to anyone and no one would have known they'd even been here, you humans could go on denying alien life."

"No harm? They were Brachurst fighters, they weren't out for a relaxing holiday. They'd already killed me once."

The Doctor's expression does not change as Jack says this, and she finds herself praying the Doctor is careful with his next words, she's not sure the Hub will survive this fight if he isn't.

"You've had worse." Ianto's sharp breath is loud in her ear. She forgot that not all danger is physical.

On screen, Jack's body stands frozen solid as though someone has pressed the pause button. His head whips around and she thinks his eyes must be searing holes through the alien's own.

"Get out." Barely audible. Dangerously controlled. She hasn't seen this Jack since Ianto's cyberwoman girlfriend was revealed. Shivers slide down her spine at the blankness of Jack's eyes.

The Doctor, having realised he has gone too far, she thinks, deflates at Jack's words. She can't help but wonder if he has let his anger go too late.

"Jack, look obviously…" But he is cut off.

"No. I want you to get out." Jack's voice isn't so controlled anymore, instead emotions raw and harsh are slipping through, evident even through the tinny speakers. It isn't the first time the Doctor has visited the Hub, isn't even the first time the two men have argued; they obviously have a history that seems to attract conflict. She has never seen them like this though.

Jack's immortality has become a simple piece of knowledge to them now, something accepted, but not something they take for granted. She isn't the only one who remembers the week long wait after Abbadon. However, she cannot remember a time where she has heard Jack discuss it with the Doctor, and she thinks she understands why now.

On screen, and in the cells below, the Doctor is trying again to talk, explain maybe? Apologise?

"Jack. Listen. I shouldn't have said that, but it's true. I know you've died in worse ways. A bullet has to be better than a stray javelin." His tone suggests he is trying to lighten the mood. Although the reference is not one she understands, she knows Jack, knows his moods and knows by the way he is setting his jaw that the Doctor is going to get an earful of information he won't like.

"A javelin? Come on Doc, you can do better than that. How about extermination by Dalek? Or electrocution? How about the constantly repeating death of radiation overload? Or the hundreds of inventive ways your old friend decided to kill the Freak with before you issued a forgiveness you had no right to give?" The Doctor, she can see, is shaking his head, his hands raised in supplication, a silent plea for Jack to stop. But she recognises the feral look in Jack's eyes; he is far from done yet.

She doesn't have time to actually analyse what Jack is saying, there will be time enough for that later.

"Have you ever been skinned alive Doctor? Have you ever been bled slowly of every drop of blood just so someone can measure how long it will take for you to die? I can't say I'd recommend it."

"Jack stop. Please." She has never heard the Doctor beg before, she doubts Jack has either, but he's far too gone to notice, and she can see tears falling unacknowledged from the blue eyes. This has been a long time coming.

Beside her, she can feel Ianto shaking with emotion. She can't tear her eyes away from the screens, though, to see if it's anger or pain.

"I begged him to stop. Be he wouldn't. And he had Yvonne's records. He knew everything."

"What records, Jack?" The Doctor's curiosity overtakes his horror, apparently; she doesn't understand it. She's beginning to wish he had walked away.

"Yvonne Hartman's, she...didn't you wonder where I was during the Cyberman attack?" Obviously the Doctor hasn't, to be honest, neither has she until now.

"She found me a few years ago. Torchwood had gotten more powerful, and a never aging man didn't slip under their radar anymore." There's no humour in his chuckle. "They needed me for experiments, wanted to know how I kept on living, how my body fixed itself. She wanted to use it. I was in the lab when the Cybermen came. I only survived because I was already dead. Isn't it funny? They saved my life because they kept killing me." No, not funny.

Silence reigns for several minutes, and she wills the Doctor to do something; to fix Jack.

Whether he hears her or not, she'll never know, but she watches as the Doctor approaches Jack and tentatively pulls him into an embrace. As Jack crumbles into his...friend?, the screens go black.  
She turns, and sees Ianto holding the plug end of the screens' cable.

"We've seen enough." Is all he offers in response to their probably amusing expressions. It's true what he says, they've seen more than enough.

They're out buying coffee when the Doctor eventually leaves and when they return, Jack looks a lot lighter. When he leans over her to steal her coffee, she catches sight of a key swinging loose around his neck.

 

**End.**


End file.
